Primary or Secondary teaching?

[ashimani]

Hey everyone,
Was just wondering which you would prefer, primary or secondary teaching? I'm a little more inclined towards primary teaching due to the amount of disrespect secondary teachers get but I'm not sure..

[Aaron]

It's just as bad, perhaps worse in primary.

If you genuinely wanted to teach, you'd have a good idea of which one would suit you.

In an ideal world, no job would have disrespectful behaviour attached but unfortunately it exists whereever you go. In secondary it's mainly the kids and some instances parents, but in primary it's mostly the parents who think they know best.

I personally believe that choosing primary teaching on the sole basis of disrespect secondary teachers get is a pretty poor reason. Go back to the drawing board and consider the pros/cons of each and go from there. I won't lie and say that teaching is easy (in terms of behaviour etc), because it isn't. But the key requirement of a teacher is rapport and relationship building. If you don't have that, you may as well go find another career. Teaching content to a class is only a fraction of what teachers do.

I considered primary teaching when I started but in the end decided not to because I had a 3-year bachelors degree in IT and secondary allowed me to cover a wide range of abilities and age groups (from the group you'd still consider primary - year 7, all the way to adults - year 12).

[Joseph41]

If you genuinely wanted to teach, you'd have a good idea of which one would suit you.

Agree with your post largely and you'd know much better than I would, but not 100% sure on this point specifically. You don't think some teachers would sort of drift toward one area as they go?